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Posted
8 minutes ago, Lamar said:

Wait, AISD is consolidating schools out in Midland and Alpine? I had no idea of their reach.
 

There are many options in Austin for education and the voucher program will make that more accessible for more people. St Andrews is just 1 school.

Don’t be dense on his first point. And if past history from other states that have adopted voucher programs have proven, your second point is unlikely as well. 

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Posted
10 minutes ago, YChang said:

Don’t be dense on his first point. And if past history from other states that have adopted voucher programs have proven, your second point is unlikely as well. 

That’s fine. This thread, and my comments, are regarding Austin ISD School Consolidation. You want to talk about vouchers for Brownfield, go start a thread.

Other states? Austin is a city. Austin has Montessori, charter, magnet, public, private, home, all-girl, etc….school options. Pick your preference. 

Posted
27 minutes ago, Lamar said:

That’s fine. This thread, and my comments, are regarding Austin ISD School Consolidation. You want to talk about vouchers for Brownfield, go start a thread.

Other states? Austin is a city. Austin has Montessori, charter, magnet, public, private, home, all-girl, etc….school options. Pick your preference. 

You can’t be serious.  Have you done ANY reading whatsoever on this topic?  What evidence can you cite that shows vouchers improve outcomes for students in the lowest 50% of household incomes?

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

You can’t be serious.  Have you done ANY reading whatsoever on this topic?  What evidence can you cite that shows vouchers improve outcomes for students in the lowest 50% of household incomes?

He's done his own research!!!

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Posted
1 hour ago, Lamar said:

Austin has Montessori, charter, magnet, public, private, home, all-girl, etc….school options. Pick your preference. 

If you have the means to pick.  Including the means to make up the shortfall that the voucher partial payment represents.

And people question the existence and meaning of white privilege.

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

If you have the means to pick.  Including the means to make up the shortfall that the voucher partial payment represents.

And people question the existence and meaning of white privilege.

Brentwood, St Austin, St Louis, etc…. For K-8 grade is around $11k. They give away hundreds a of thousands in scholarships (which gets a lot easier when $10k is already covered). You really should go check it out.

Adding… they won’t give scholarship money to the rich white kids, so you can rest easy.

 

Edited by Lamar
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Posted

Some friends moved to Colorado last summer so their kids enrolled in 4th and 7th grade there this fall. They went to Gullett and Lamar, so AISD “A” schools. Both were great students. Their new Colorado schools tested them to see where they were at academically. They don’t trust scores from Texas. Both were significantly behind for their grade level. Luckily, they both got back on grade level at the end of the first 9 weeks. Their parents were definitely shocked since the older kid never made a grade below 98 and was in all advanced classes and the younger one never struggled for one minute in school. The younger kid was so far behind, the school tested her for learning disabilities just to be safe.

Now, Mrs. Brown is freaking out that we’re ruining our kid by leaving her at Lamar and not just taking her out of state.

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Posted
On 10/18/2025 at 12:02 PM, Lamar said:

 

Adding… they won’t give scholarship money to the rich white kids, so you can rest easy.

 

If it takes a nickel from the underclass, it's fucked up spending with regard to education.

Invest where the improvement for society can really take place. As a taxpayer, those rich kids are already gonna be fine.  How are we making things better for the lower income student?  By moving funding from their schools?

 

LOLz.  Fuck that.

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Posted
11 hours ago, Iceman said:

If it takes a nickel from the underclass, it's fucked up spending with regard to education.

Invest where the improvement for society can really take place. As a taxpayer, those rich kids are already gonna be fine.  How are we making things better for the lower income student?  By moving funding from their schools?

 

LOLz.  Fuck that.

Well let's fix recapture. Even a small portion of that staying with Austin ISD fixes budget shortfalls. If 1,000 kids opt for private school and take the $10K with then that's just a tiny portion of what recapture does to our school system.

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Posted
5 hours ago, ZB'Tejas said:

Well let's fix recapture. Even a small portion of that staying with Austin ISD fixes budget shortfalls. If 1,000 kids opt for private school and take the $10K with then that's just a tiny portion of what recapture does to our school system.

You're not wrong.

Remember Prop A from last year?  Austin voters voted to voluntarily raise their own school property taxes to cover "copper" pennies.  If those "copper" pennies were simply changed to be "golden" pennies, meaning no recapture, the budget would balance with room to spare.

It would mean $130 million in new funding for the district per year, and it would not affect the "original" recapture payment at all.  That would still go to the state.

Such an easy fix and yet here we are ...

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Posted

Another note on the recapture issue: If AISD pulls the trigger on this consolidation plan as-is causing more and more families to pull out of AISD, then the recapture obligations rise. Put another way, if you have the same property taxes, but fewer students, that means the wealth-per-student metric ticks up, causing more money to be sent elsewhere.

As noted, this is a feature, not a bug. AISD is doing all of this to fend off a state takeover while TEA and the Lege keep moving the goalposts. They not just playing on different levels, they're playing different games.

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Posted
13 hours ago, ZB'Tejas said:

Well let's fix recapture. Even a small portion of that staying with Austin ISD fixes budget shortfalls. If 1,000 kids opt for private school and take the $10K with then that's just a tiny portion of what recapture does to our school system.

And who exactly is looking out for AISD’s interests at the state level to make that happen?

I almost got laughed off the board last spring, but this is my pipe dream scenario where it gets fixed. The state takes over and wants to look like the heroes solving all of AISD’s problems. They will be under a microscope even more than with Houston for all the political reasons. They get the formula tweaked or some type of carve out that benefits AISD. Then they fix a lot of the financial problems that the district could have solved on their own, claim victory, and eventually move on to their next target with increased political capital.

Is that likely? Of course not. But can you give me a more plausible scenario of recapture getting fixed in the next decade?

Posted
9 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

And who exactly is looking out for AISD’s interests at the state level to make that happen?

I almost got laughed off the board last spring, but this is my pipe dream scenario where it gets fixed. The state takes over and wants to look like the heroes solving all of AISD’s problems. They will be under a microscope even more than with Houston for all the political reasons. They get the formula tweaked or some type of carve out that benefits AISD. Then they fix a lot of the financial problems that the district could have solved on their own, claim victory, and eventually move on to their next target with increased political capital.

Is that likely? Of course not. But can you give me a more plausible scenario of recapture getting fixed in the next decade?

Considering what's happened in Houston, don't consider your scenario to be too unlikely. 

Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

And who exactly is looking out for AISD’s interests at the state level to make that happen?

I almost got laughed off the board last spring, but this is my pipe dream scenario where it gets fixed. The state takes over and wants to look like the heroes solving all of AISD’s problems. They will be under a microscope even more than with Houston for all the political reasons. They get the formula tweaked or some type of carve out that benefits AISD. Then they fix a lot of the financial problems that the district could have solved on their own, claim victory, and eventually move on to their next target with increased political capital.

Is that likely? Of course not. But can you give me a more plausible scenario of recapture getting fixed in the next decade?

Most of the state isn't even aware that TEA has taken over HISD. Most of those that are aware, don't give a shit.  TEA could shutter AISD, imprison the teachers, and sell the kids into slavery and it would make the news for a week before no one gives a shit about that either.

Recapture is never getting fixed. 

Edited by CooterBrown
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Posted

Agreed with the lack of awareness of TEA takeover of HISD.  I have family with kids in Spring Branch ISD.  They are not aware or even following the HISD takeover.  I have raised the topic with them multiple times and they are just totally unaware of it happening.

Posted

The general population isn’t aware of almost any political news, so that’s not surprising. I think a TEA takeover of Austin would be much more newsworthy because of the political activism of the district, proximity to the Capitol, and the political/connected nature of the parents. Houston ISD doesn’t have a west Austin contingent that largely despises TEA and Abbott. They are 80% low income and the other 20% are fine as long as their magnet programs don’t get cut. I think AISD could keep the takeover in the media enough to create some pressure that the state actually deliver some results.

Just to reiterate, I rate my idea that a state takeover leads to recapture being fixed at a 1% possibility. But I rate the legislature doing it because it’s the right thing at 0%.

Posted

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

Posted
43 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? 

I can only assume so.  Maybe I'm not aware of how many private and charter school options there are in Austin these days, but it didn't seem to me that the private/charter source would have been a significant cause of declining enrollment in so many AISD schools given Austin's population explosion over the past two decades.  

Posted
2 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

The general population isn’t aware of almost any political news, so that’s not surprising. I think a TEA takeover of Austin would be much more newsworthy because of the political activism of the district, proximity to the Capitol, and the political/connected nature of the parents. Houston ISD doesn’t have a west Austin contingent that largely despises TEA and Abbott. They are 80% low income and the other 20% are fine as long as their magnet programs don’t get cut. I think AISD could keep the takeover in the media enough to create some pressure that the state actually deliver some results.

Just to reiterate, I rate my idea that a state takeover leads to recapture being fixed at a 1% possibility. But I rate the legislature doing it because it’s the right thing at 0%.

I live in Houston, and this is pretty inaccurate on a couple levels. The first one is that Houston ISD doesn't have a "west Austin contingent." I live in the Heights and Timbergrove/Oak Forest section of Houston, which is Central Houston, HISD, and homes that go from 500k to 1.5 million, at least these days. These are a lot of well-to-do families, votes blue, and widely despises Abbot and and TEA. There was no shortage of F Mike Miles yard signs anywhere around me. And by "no shortage" i mean every third house. HISD also encompasses River Oaks, West U/Rice Village, I believe Bellaire, which areas home prices blow Heights/Timbergrove out of the water. Now, do a lot of those kids go to private school? Yes. Are the expensive areas still somewhat protected even though they're within HISD? Yes. But you're talking about literally the richest areas in Houston that are within HISD. Lets not pretend these people are completely unaware of what's going on.

I think a takeover in Austin won't make any more or prolonged media attention than the fourth largest city in the United States did...because people are powerless to do anything about it. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

I would guess a big part of it is that there is a large population of high income singles and DINKs or, if they have a kid, it's only one.  The US has a declining birthrate and that's going to be led by your urban cities since high income, educated people are more likely to skip kids altogether.   

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Posted
3 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

I would guess a big part of it is that there is a large population of high income singles and DINKs or, if they have a kid, it's only one.  The US has a declining birthrate and that's going to be led by your urban cities since high income, educated people are more likely to skip kids altogether.   

This.  Within AISD boundaries, housing costs have skyrocketed, which (1) prices out many families with kids, (2) particularly lower and middle income families that are likely to have more than one kid, leaving behind either DINKS or higher income folks who stop at one kid.

Bitsy and Chadsworth have no kid or one kid.

Jimmy and Sally Suburb have 2-3 kids.

Suburban districts are growing (see Liberty Hill, Round Rock, etc.).  Urban ones are....not.

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Posted
10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Bitsy and Chadsworth

Am I supposed to have no idea who the husband and who the wife is in this situation? 

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Posted
53 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

I would guess a big part of it is that there is a large population of high income singles and DINKs 

I'm pretty sure this is racist.  It sounds like it could be racist.

Posted
6 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I'm pretty sure this is racist.  It sounds like it could be racist.

When you use "DINK" for "Dutch In Need of Killing," like I do, then it sure as shit is.

Posted

AISD did extensive studies on the decline. Largest factor was cost of living and larger families moving to the burbs. For a while they had a team trying to find families affordable housing within AISD boundaries. Charters are the next biggest issue. This doesn’t include all of them.image.thumb.jpeg.b39d2b92d9d38e9c42d43e8e39c8a78b.jpeg

As far as the AISD vs HISD level of hysteria, only time will tell. I’ll still take Austin libs over just about anybody not on the east or west coast. Let’s just say I would not want to be the appointed superintendent.

Posted
2 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

Demographic shifts and flight to suburbs.  Lots of childless people moving into Austin and lots of families moving out to Dripping Springs, Lake Travis, Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock, etc.

Posted

It doesn't really matter if your kids are in AISD or a palace in the suburbs.  If they're in a Texas public school, they're not getting much of an education.   This isn't anything new; it's just getting worse.  

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Posted
18 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

The 2023-24 demographic report had some information on losses to area charter schools and other districts.
It shows a net loss of 868 students from SY 2017/18 to SY 2022/23.  Over that same period, district enrollment fell by 8266 students.

Here's a list of area school districts and charter schools that receive students from AISD (transfers out of the district or to charters):

image.thumb.png.c1db499cfe3048885141440e532e6bed.png

And a list of area districts that send students to AISD (transfers in to the district):
image.thumb.png.96c0a9fb79a4015505ce13ffef218673.png
 
  

Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

One more point on this:  fewer kids are being born in Austin ISD and more of those kids are gone by kindergarten.

The number of births in Austin ISD has steadily dropped from 11,300 in 2006 to 9,100 in 2022.
And the percentage of kids that are still in AISD by kindergarten has dropped from 68% in 2006 to 55% in 2022.

Both trends reduce the number of kids in the district.  Unless the district makes up for this shortfall by importing kids from elsewhere, enrollment will drop and will continue to drop, regardless of the quality of the education, the buildings, whatever.  Westlake is projected to drop too, as is Vandegrift.  Lake Travis is building a second high school and is having some second thoughts about being able to fill it.

We are headed into an era where we need fewer schools or smaller schools.  They can still be great schools, but the days of measuring a district by the growth in the number of students are ending.

Edited by Texas Jeff
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Posted
It doesn't really matter if your kids are in AISD or a palace in the suburbs.  If they're in a Texas public school, they're not getting much of an education.   This isn't anything new; it's just getting worse.  

My neighbor just told me his daughter had a math problem to calculate the temperature jet fuel would have to be to melt steel.

I don’t even know what to say. Conspiracy based math definitely is not woke at least.
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Posted (edited)

TEA is taking over FWISD today.

edit: Looks like Lake Worth ISD is also on the chopping block.  TEA is certainly ramping up their takeovers.

Edited by CooterBrown
Posted
21 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

Is the decline in AISD enrollment primarily due to enrollment in private and charter schools? Here in DFW we're seeing a bunch of school closures and consolidation despite some of these areas being the fastest growing in the nation. Lots of people fleeing to the burbs but those people either don't have kids or they're not enrolling them in public school. It's a very strange phenomenon. 

Demographically in the US last year was the peak for High School seniors.  (If your kid applied then it was the most competitive  time ever) There will be a steady decline for a while and this obviously is a trailing indicator for younger kids in the system.   My school district is feeling this but is also dealing with something they did not foresee which is that families where kids go through the “good” school system don’t move once they are empty nesters, so there is also less families with school aged kids since it is not getting reset.  I believe part of people not moving is liking the community, and the other is that home prices have gone up so it is harder for younger families to get homes in more affluent areas they may desire but can’t afford.

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Posted
17 minutes ago, ABSR said:

My school district is feeling this but is also dealing with something they did not foresee which is that families where kids go through the “good” school system don’t move once they are empty nesters, so there is also less families with school aged kids since it is not getting reset.  I believe part of people not moving is liking the community, and the other is that home prices have gone up so it is harder for younger families to get homes in more affluent areas they may desire but can’t afford.

This is our neighborhood.  We still have a sophomore and freshman, but a lot of our friends have become empty nesters over the past couple of years and it doesn't seem like any of them want to move in the near future.  Some of it is wanting to keep the home base for a while as the kids come back from college.  Another part is continuing to live close to all of your friends who for various reasons all stay in the neighborhood even in the empty nest/retirement years.

We have a big house that could be more than we want after all the kids are gone.  But the mortgage is cheap, and even when its paid off, and we could take a large chunk of equity and put it down on something smaller, and maybe something closer to Central Austin, but the prices and property taxes will be crazier by then. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, South Austin said:

This is our neighborhood.  We still have a sophomore and freshman, but a lot of our friends have become empty nesters over the past couple of years and it doesn't seem like any of them want to move in the near future.  Some of it is wanting to keep the home base for a while as the kids come back from college.  Another part is continuing to live close to all of your friends who for various reasons all stay in the neighborhood even in the empty nest/retirement years.

We have a big house that could be more than we want after all the kids are gone.  But the mortgage is cheap, and even when its paid off, and we could take a large chunk of equity and put it down on something smaller, and maybe something closer to Central Austin, but the prices and property taxes will be crazier by then. 

Yeah, we're empty nest, in a larger house....and we plan to stay here for another 10-15 years.  It's our hood, our neighbors, and we do like having a good base of operations when the kids and others come to visit (and we like to host some pretty big parties, so like the space for that).  Eventually, we'll downsize, but not in the near future.  And that means that a house that could have school kids will not for a decade plus.

Posted

While I won't like moving away from the familiarity and friends, I can't wait to get the hell out of this house when the kids head off to college.  We might stay put for four years or so to get them through undergrad with a familiar place to come home to, but that will be it.  I need less house and more open space, a workshop, etc., and most importantly, no more city of Austin insane taxes.

Posted
2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:


My neighbor just told me his daughter had a math problem to calculate the temperature jet fuel would have to be to melt steel.

I don’t even know what to say. Conspiracy based math definitely is not woke at least.

Also, that's stupid as fuck.  It's not a calculation, it's looking up the melting point of steel.

Posted
24 minutes ago, South Austin said:

This is our neighborhood.  We still have a sophomore and freshman, but a lot of our friends have become empty nesters over the past couple of years and it doesn't seem like any of them want to move in the near future.  Some of it is wanting to keep the home base for a while as the kids come back from college.  Another part is continuing to live close to all of your friends who for various reasons all stay in the neighborhood even in the empty nest/retirement years.

We have a big house that could be more than we want after all the kids are gone.  But the mortgage is cheap, and even when its paid off, and we could take a large chunk of equity and put it down on something smaller, and maybe something closer to Central Austin, but the prices and property taxes will be crazier by then. 

Also where would you put all of your crap?  🙂  My kids have been off to college for a while and I am still opening closets, panicking,  and then slowly closing them.

Our neighborhood was built in the 1940s and I think my kids were part of maybe the 3rd wave of kids to live here.  The fourth is ramping up.  We had lots of kids on our street when we moved here.  Then teens and then zero.  Now we are back to strollers.

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Posted
Also, that's stupid as fuck.  It's not a calculation, it's looking up the melting point of steel.

Wait until I tell you that AISD 7th grade advanced ELA “book reports” are actually art projects where they draw important scenes from the book. They don’t actually write anything for a book report.
Posted
10 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

Also where would you put all of your crap?  🙂  My kids have been off to college for a while and I am still opening closets, panicking,  and then slowly closing them.

I look forward to getting rid of all the crap.  When I moved into my wife's house last March, we both did a major purge at my old house and her house, getting rid of un-needed furniture and mounds of other stuff to Salvation Army, Goodwill, or curbside bulky trash service.  It was a ton of work, but so worth it.

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